Source: Huffington Post
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A week after President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the U.S. House of Representatives gathered on Wednesday to impeach the president for his role in an assault on American democracy that stunned the nation and left five dead.At least five Republicans have said they would join Democrats to impeach Trump for the second time, just seven days before he is due to leave office and President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20.
A vote of the House majority to impeach would trigger a trial in the still Republican-controlled Senate, although it was unclear whether such a trial would take place in time to expel Trump from the White House.
Washington is on high alert after the riot and with a week to go in Trump’s term. Thousands of National Guard troops were planned to be on hand and some members in fatigues, with weapons at hand, could be seen sleeping inside the Capitol building on Wednesday ahead of the session.
The House convened just after 9 a.m. (1400 GMT) in the same chamber where lawmakers hid under chairs last Wednesday as angry rioters clashed with police in the halls of the Capitol.
Democrats moved forward on an impeachment vote after Vice President Mike Pence rejected an effort to persuade him to invoke the 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to remove Trump.
“I do not believe that such a course of action is in the best interest of our Nation or consistent with our Constitution,” Pence said in a letter Tuesday evening to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Categories: Good governance
(CNN) A rioter who stormed the US Capitol last week wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the phrase “Camp Auschwitz” was arrested Wednesday morning in Virginia, according to a law enforcement official.
CNN was first to report that the man in the sweatshirt was identified as Robert Keith Packer of Virginia. A law enforcement official told CNN that Packer was picked up in Newport News, Virginia.
The rioter who stormed the US Capitol Wednesday wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the phrase "Camp Auschwitz", identified as Robert Keith Packer of Virginia, was arrested Wednesday morning in Virginia, according to a law enforcement official.
The rioter who stormed the US Capitol Wednesday wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the phrase “Camp Auschwitz”, identified as Robert Keith Packer of Virginia, was arrested Wednesday morning in Virginia, according to a law enforcement official.
An image of Packer inside the Capitol, whose sweatshirt bore the name of the Nazi concentration camp where about 1.1 million people were killed during World War II, has evoked shock and disbelief on social media. The bottom of his shirt stated, “Work brings freedom,” which is the rough translation of the phrase “Arbeit macht frei” that was on the concentration camp’s gates.
Packer has a criminal history including three convictions for driving under the influence and a felony conviction for forging public records, according to Virginia court records. He was charged in 2016 for allegedly trespassing. The case was later dismissed.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/politics/camp-auschwitz-shirt-capitol-arrested/index.html
How Ted Cruz wasted his intellect to back Donald Trump’s fraud
(CNN) He might have been the best of us. He is the worst of us.
The manifest tragedy of the life of Texas’ junior US Sen. Ted Cruz is what he might have accomplished had he not wasted a fine intellect to serve his craven political ambitions instead of the country he professes to love. Nearly every clever phrase he has turned in public discourse appears to have been designed to disrupt, not repair, and to turn the focus to Cruz, instead of the issue at hand.
The first Hispanic American elected to the US Senate from Texas, and a graduate of Harvard Law School and Princeton University, Cruz had argued nine cases before the US Supreme Court by the time he ran for Senate — more than any practicing Texas lawyer or member of Congress. Anyone who has authored 70 Supreme Court briefs, which Cruz did as solicitor general of Texas, surely must have skills to marshal the power of facts.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/13/opinions/ted-cruz-wasted-intellect-donald-trump-moore/index.html